“He's saying that what's good for America is good for everyone else. We are used to this kind of bombast from our Arab leaders,” one analyst said. (Reuters)

CAIRO, January 22 (IslamOnline.net) – US President George Bush’s assertion that spreading democracy around the world would take central stage in his second term got a frosty reception in the Arab world, with analysts dismissing the “messianic” speech as hollow rhetoric, reported a leading American newspaper on Saturday, January 22.

“He's saying that what's good for America is good for everyone else. We are used to this kind of bombast from our Arab leaders. But it's been a long time since I've heard it in English,” The Washington Post quoted Sadiq Azm, a Syrian writer, as saying.

“It's scary stuff, so sweeping and overarching you don't know what to make of it,” said Azm, a reform advocate.

In his inauguration speech on Thursday, January 20, Bush said his administration would support fostering democratic freedoms.

“It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world,” he said.

“We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”

Bush and leaders of the G8 launched, at the 2004 G8 summit, the Partnership for Progress and a Common Future with the Region of the Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA).

Washington considers reforms essential in the Arab and Muslim world to ease frustrations and prejudices that it claims breed terrorism.

“Churchillian”

Azm described Bush's language as “Churchillian, but at a time without an adversary as serious as the Nazi regime.”

“People will see in this the old civilizing mission, the old colonialism,” said the Syrian reformist.

“He has adopted the reformers' agenda, but in such a messianic way that even we are not ready to go that far.”

Several US experts and analysts have attributed Bush’s re-election to massive support by conservative Christian groups and a notable showing among regular churchgoing Catholics and mainline Protestants.

The born-again Methodist Bush frequently uses religious imagery in his speeches and repeatedly drew his anti-terror campaign as a battle of good against evil.

On the US markets, video tapes and DVDs tell the story of how Bush abandoned alcohol at the age of 40 and rediscovered his Christian faith.

Imposing Freedom

A protester holds up a sign as President Bush passes by in the inaugural parade. (Reuters)

Several Arab analysts dismissed Bush’s speech as mantra-like rhetoric, saying it lacked specifics of how Washington would do the job.

“What he said is great, and we completely agree,” said Abdulaziz Alsebail, a professor of modern literature at King Saud University in  Riyadh.

“But the question is: How can you impose freedom? Is military intervention the right way to do it? I don't think it's been a very successful attempt at all,” said the expert, a reform advocate.

Mohamed Alayyan, publisher of the Al-Ghad daily in Amman, echoed the same concern.

“Are we going to see more military intervention, or are we talking about something like a Marshall Plan?”

Only Preaching

Other analysts said Washington was not practicing what it preaches.

Alayyan stressed that for the Bush administration to achieve its objective “the perception of the people in the Middle East must be changed, especially regarding the Palestinian dilemma and the treatment of prisoners of war.

Arab countries that participated in the US-sponsored Forum for the Future, recently hosted by the Moroccan capital, dodged western pressure for reforms by linking the process to the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Most Arabs accuse Washington of outright bias towards Israel at the expense of  all its Arab and Muslim allies.

“You cannot forget the effect Abu Ghraib had on American credibility here,” Alayyan added.

The Abu Ghraib scandal exploded onto the world stage on April 29 after the CBS news network published several graphic photos of Iraqi detainees tortured and sexually abused by American jailers.

Since then the scandal has been deepening, exposing more elements and factors about interrogation techniques approved by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has been under domestic and international pressure to step down.

Unhappy with reference to its practices in Iraq and the Israeli aggressions in Palestine, the Bush administration threatened to cut off funds to the UN Development Program (UNDP) if its report on reform in the Arab world is released.

A Pentagon report released in November said the US was alienating Muslims worldwide and losing the “the war of ideas” because of adopting faulty policies and what was perceived as “self-serving hypocrisy”.

In August, US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who is to replace outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell, admitted failure to win the Muslims’ hearts and minds.